How to keep the collaboration and communication going long after the event ends.
By Mitra Sorrells – BizBash
Teambuilding activities such as retreats, community service projects, competitive games, and problem-solving challenges can be great tools for companies to strengthen employee relationships, improve communication, break down barriers, re-energize staff, and ultimately improve the work climate and positively impact the bottom line. But those outcomes don’t just happen—they require advanced planning and follow-up. We surveyed teambuilding professionals for ideas on how to create long-term value from a teambuilding activity:
- Create a long-term plan. Don’t view a teambuilding activity as a one-time event. Teams that like each other and get together on a regular basis are more excited about working, because they like the people they work with. Do teambuilding on a continuous basis so people know you are committed to it and are committed to them getting to know each other as people, especially in this day and age when we all sit in cubicles and exchange emails and do virtual conferences.
- Involve employees as facilitators during the event so they can be the point of contact for continued conversations.
- Capture the event with photos and videos. Pictures and videos are the memories of participants bonding together. Relationships are everything at the office.
- Schedule a meeting immediately after the event for participants to debrief with one another. Use internal facilitators to lead a discussion driven by questions such as: What was the most interesting or surprising part of this activity? How was the level of cooperation? How will what we learned affect our performance? Are there suggestions for improvement for our next teambuilding activity?
- Share lessons learned through employee communication channels such as e-newsletters, internal message boards, or bulletin boards. Think of the organization as a community, communities have stories. And stories are the things that weave the social fabric of the organization.
- Show that teamwork is important in a variety of ways. Prioritize teamwork at group meetings and individual performance appraisals. That shows that building a team is a year-long priority.
- If your teambuilding activity involved competition among groups of employees, consider maintaining those teams throughout the year and encouraging that competition. People like to win and keeping teams together creates friendly rivalry that’s a lot of fun.
